[e-drug] AstraZeneca launched new 'Patient Assistance Program' (5)

["James B. Russo" <JBRusso@aol.com>]

E-DRUG: AstraZeneca launched new 'Patient Assistance Program' (5)
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Dear e-druggers:
 
Caution: long note.  Dr. Haak's insightful observations about possible  
motives for American drug firms' patient assistance programs strike me as  
plausible, mostly.  Having worked in the industry and now in donations, I  offer some informed, if impure, observations.  
 
Corporate responsibility is a definite motivation for these programs.   Years ago, investing in responsible corporations was akin to going vegetarian --  the decent thing to do, but maybe not if it meant we'd lose something.  
 
No more, for many.  Corporate responsibility has gone  mainstream.  At an 
Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility meeting on  drug firms' responses to AIDS, Wall Street investment analysts, unions and  mutual funds were almost as numerous as nuns and other idealists.  Both  want to own stock in drug companies with generous HIV-AIDS and patient  assistance programs, serious commitments to developing nation health care, responsiveness to disasters, and so on.  
 
Don't misunderstand.  Drug firms don't claim patient assistance and  
developing world donation programs are enough.  They are not.  But we  with the moxie to speak for the voiceless do them no favor by implying they  should endure their pain until universal access is at hand.  If patient  assistance or donated drugs get them through the night, it's academic and a  little bit silly to second-guess how or why they got there.  
 
A secondary motivator of patient assistance and donation programs is the  
companies' employees.  Over a dozen years ago, I helped create one  firm's 
patient assistance program.  An unexpected side reaction was the  powerful employee approval on learning their company was doing  something to ease patients' burdens.  Perceptions of drug firms  are, perhaps understandably, dismal -- but in fact most of the  industry's employees want to do more than make a living -- they like to  tell their children they do something good, or try to.   We who are  outside those companies would be wise to capitalize on their desire to find  meaning in what they do. 
 
One of Dr.Haak's conjectures, though plausible, is probably off the mark:  
the notion that brand-firms' patient assistance programs are aimed at  regaining market share lost to generic firms that gut their market within  days of patent expiry.  Actually, brand name versions of post-patent  products tend not to be covered in patient assistance programs.   Nearly all the $5 billion worth of brand name drugs the programs cover  annually are single-source agents that are, after all, newer and more  costly.  
 
Speaking of generics: many are prospering these days, selling  medicines 
others invented, proved and taught the professions to use.  Yet  I've been unable to find any generic-drug-firm patient assistance  programs.  Surely, even at half the innovators' prices, generics  remain beyond the reach of millions of uninsured Americans.
 
I can think of one more rationale for brand-firms' patient assistance  
programs: to ease the burden until Americans have the universal coverage.   Many of these programs have existed, sans fanfare, for decades.  One was  initiated fifty years ago, and there are more than fifty now, plus many  state and city programs.  Most are described at _www.pparx.org_ (http://www.pparx.org) .
 
My bottom line: while universal access to essential medicines is  beyond 
debate and we  must not take our eyes off that prize, neither  should we 
discourage steps that comfort patients, whatever motives might drive  them.
 
James B.  Russo
Senior Advisor
The Partnership for Quality Medical  Donations
www.pqmd.org
146 Koenig Rd.
Bernville, PA 19506 USA
610  488 8303
610 488 7036 (fax)
484 269 6470  (mobile)
jbrusso@pqmd.org

[The moderator cannot help but be surprised by how company programmes are defended by Americans claiming these companies do this 'to be good'. Many of us live in cooutries where everybody has access, not even free samples are permitted. Surely the richest country in the world should be able to give its people access to affordable medicines and vaccines. When people travel to Canada to get more affordable medicines FDA questions the quality(!). Why do people not address this issue? Remember also that inclusion criteria for these progammes are strict and how can continuous supply be guaranteed.]